Government officials have also requested colleges let them know “when and how” they plan to use the video message.

But last night, opposition parties pointed out that college funding had been cut by more than £50 million in recent years, and staff and student numbers slashed.

In the video, Mr Russell tells students that graduation is about “more than gaining a certificate”.

“You’ll have had the opportunity to develop as a person, as well as a student,” he reflects. “Perhaps you now feel more confident speaking to new people you meet, perhaps you have new confidence to learn new things, to do things differently, to extend and improve your relationships with others.”

He adds: “You’ve made an enormous investment in your future, society’s future and in Scotland’s future. I think you should be ambitious and be bold.”

The message came to light after an e-mail was distributed to colleges last week. It stated Mr Russell “has recorded a short message which you may wish to show at your graduation ceremonies, on your college website and your social media platforms. We would be grateful if you could let us know when and how you plan to use the video message”.

The recording was not sent to universities, with a government spokesman insisting it was “very specific” to colleges.

The spokesman added: “The cabinet secretary for education and lifelong learning is keen to show his full support for young people’s successes, including their achievements in college.”

But the move came under fire from Scottish Conservative spokeswoman Mary Scanlon.

She said: “Is it not difficult enough to spend years at college working towards graduation without having to suffer five minutes of Mike Russell by videolink? This is supposed to be a day of celebration for the students and lecturers, whose hard work over many years is being recognised. It is an extremely proud day for those involved, and shouldn’t be used as a chance to grandstand by the education secretary.”

Ms Scanlon said there would have been an “outcry” if UK Education Secretary Michael Gove had distributed a similar recording to colleges in England.

“Perhaps Mike Russell would like to use this opportunity to apologise to colleges by video for the tens of millions of pounds the SNP has removed from college budgets,” she said.

A report by spending watchdog Audit Scotland shows that between 2010-11 and 2011-12, student numbers at colleges fell by almost 50,000 while 1,000 teaching posts were cut and there were five million fewer teaching hours. A further £25m was cut from the budget this year and legislation brought in to merge colleges as part of 13 new regions. Teaching unions and student leaders say teaching quality is at risk from the cuts.

Liberal Democrat education spokesman Liam McArthur said: “In an act of supreme self-importance, Mike Russell plans to gate-crash the party of every college student in Scotland.

“If he takes the opportunity to apologise for slashing college budgets, cutting thousands of courses and forcing hundreds of staff out of their jobs, it may serve a purpose. If not, it will be seen as a self-indulgent stunt.”

Labour spokesman Neil Bibby said: “If he wants to congratulate students then he should actually turn up rather than provide the equivalent of the Queen’s speech.”

This website and its associated newspaper adheres to the Independent Press Standards Organisation's Editors' Code of Practice.
If you have a complaint about editorial content which relates to inaccuracy or intrusion, then contact the
Editor by clicking here.

If you remain dissatisfied with the response provided then you can contact the IPSO by
clicking here.

The Scotsman provides news, events and sport features from the Edinburgh area. For the best up to date information relating to Edinburgh and the surrounding areas visit us at The Scotsman regularly or bookmark this page.

For you to enjoy all the features of this website The Scotsman requires permission to use cookies.

Find Out More ▼

What is a Cookie?

What is a Flash Cookie?

Can I opt out of receiving Cookies?

About our Cookies

Cookies are small data files which are sent to your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome etc) from a website you visit. They are stored on your electronic device.

This is a type of cookie which is collected by Adobe Flash media player (it is also called a Local Shared Object) - a piece of software you may already have on your electronic device to help you watch online videos and listen to podcasts.

Yes there are a number of options available, you can set your browser either to reject all cookies, to allow only "trusted" sites to set them, or to only accept them from the site you are currently on.

However, please note - if you block/delete all cookies, some features of our websites, such as remembering your login details, or the site branding for your local newspaper may not function as a result.

The types of cookies we, our ad network and technology partners use are listed below:

Revenue Science ►

A tool used by some of our advertisers to target adverts to you based on pages you have visited in the past. To opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Google Ads ►

Our sites contain advertising from Google; these use cookies to ensure you get adverts relevant to you. You can tailor the type of ads you receive by visiting here or to opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Digital Analytics ►

This is used to help us identify unique visitors to our websites. This data is anonymous and we cannot use this to uniquely identify individuals and their usage of the sites.

Dart for Publishers ►

This comes from our ad serving technology and is used to track how many times you have seen a particular ad on our sites, so that you don't just see one advert but an even spread. This information is not used by us for any other type of audience recording or monitoring.

ComScore ►

ComScore monitor and externally verify our site traffic data for use within the advertising industry. Any data collected is anonymous statistical data and cannot be traced back to an individual.

Local Targeting ►

Our Classified websites (Photos, Motors, Jobs and Property Today) use cookies to ensure you get the correct local newspaper branding and content when you visit them. These cookies store no personally identifiable information.

Grapeshot ►

We use Grapeshot as a contextual targeting technology, allowing us to create custom groups of stories outside out of our usual site navigation. Grapeshot stores the categories of story you have been exposed to. Their privacy policy and opt out option can be accessed here.

Subscriptions Online ►

Our partner for Newspaper subscriptions online stores data from the forms you complete in these to increase the usability of the site and enhance user experience.

Add This ►

Add This provides the social networking widget found in many of our pages. This widget gives you the tools to bookmark our websites, blog, share, tweet and email our content to a friend.